


Fallout

by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters



Series: Aftermaths [4]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comics), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Hateful Language, M/M, Mikey's Dark Side, violent fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:33:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters/pseuds/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters
Summary: Mikey and Hob cross paths in the aftermath of Slash's death, and take out their anger on each other.
Relationships: Mikey/Slash
Series: Aftermaths [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983247
Kudos: 9





	Fallout

It's been three days since Slash's death and Mikey's about cried himself out. Which is why he has to leave, because now he's just _angry_. And even in his current state, he nows that he can't let his brothers see him like that.

Sweet little Mikey just isn't _allowed_ to get angry. No one's ever said that, just like no one's ever said that he's the only one who's allowed to cry and be comforted in front of the others. It's just one of the strange, unbreakable little rules that crop in a household like theirs.

If he stays home and starts smashing things like he wants to, his brothers won't know what to do--he's not _Raph_ , after all. They might get confused and try to comfort him, so he'll end up taking out his pain out on _them._ That's the last thing Mikey wants, so instead he waits until no one's paying attention and slips out the door.

The urge to punch and break follows him, though, no matter how many lungfuls he takes of bracing night air he takes. He feels the blood in his veins jumping, hissing like a nest of angry snakes. His hands tingle, aching to _break_ and _tear_ and _smash_ in all the terrible ways he's been trained to use them. Every time he closes his eyes he sees himself hunting Bishop down and hitting him until...until...he tries to blink the ugly images away.

God, he _hates_ being angry. He doesn't know how Raph ~~and Slash~~ bears it. Mikey stays away from people, telling himself he's not in the mood to get in a fight, when really he's scared if what will happen--what he'll do--if he's caught up in one.

He jumps between buildings and for a moment, as he hangs in space, he wonders if this is what Slash felt like when he was ejected from Sally's plane. Weightless, suspended and still in motion...only he had nowhere to land. When Mikey land on the next roof he stays on his knees for a few minutes, shaking too hard to get up.

They've been talking about setting up some kind of memorial, maybe corralling the Mutanimals into the church or something. Mikey can't bear to talk about such things, can't bear to admit that Slash is truly, permanently gone. His brave, beautiful friend was a hero, and heroes always come back from the dead...don't they?

 _Beautiful._ Mikey knows there's supposed to be something deeply weird about a dude calling another dude that, especially when said dude ~~looks~~ looked like Slash. But Slash _was_ beautiful, at least to Mikey. Beautiful when he fought, beautiful when he read or used his amazing big words, beautiful when it was just the two of them hanging out together. Beautiful, just like the tingle in Mikey's tummy when he saw him was beautiful.

He'd never really given much thought to those tingles, never really dared to explore his feelings. He'd always thought they'd have more time. _We were supposed to have more time_.

It just isn't _fair_ , Mikey thinks as he stomps across the rooftops. Yeah, maybe there's no such thing as fair, but hadn't Slash _earned_ a happy ending? He'd spent so much time trapped as Bishop's mind slave, hurting his friends, _killing_ innocent people like that poor old man. The memory of looking into Slash's black mask and seeing nothing looking back--or worse, watching Bishop _operate_ him like some demented puppet--haunts Mikey's dreams.

(A tiny, irrational part of him hates Leo for giving Slash that mask after recovering from his brainwashing. He knows it's ridiculous, know that there's no such thing as a mask being _cursed_ , but...but they live in an irrational world, and Mikey's not thinking very clearly right now).

They'd _saved_ him. That was the truly cruel thing. They'd fought and bled, they'd had Leo and Hob's plans, Donnie's smarts, the desperate rage of all of Slash's friends, and it still hadn't been enough. The fight had been lost from the beginning, ever since they planted that terrible nuke in him.

It _hurts_. It hurt in a way that Mikey had never experienced before, with anyone. He missed his mom, yeah, but he didn't really remember her; it was more like missing the idea of what could have been. With Slash he knew _exactly_ what had been, understood what he had lost in excruciating detail.

He tries to tell himself that Slash is in a better place, that maybe he'll even come back at some point like they did. But being in heaven doesn't mean he can talk to them now, and even if he does reincarnate it might be _centuries_ into the future, like it was for them. Besides what if he doesn't get to come back at all like Mom did? (a fact that _still_ pisses him off more than he wants to say)

He feels tears trickling down his cheeks and the sensation makes him so mad that he has to drop to his knees and _slam_ his fists against the roof, over and over again. It isn't enough, though, and now he understand why Raph sometimes had no choice except to punch a wall.

Mikey vaults neatly into a nearby wall, planning to work out the acid burning in his heart and the hurricane raging in his head on the unforgiving brick wall. He'll tire himself out, go home, clean his wounds, and tomorrow he may still be _sad_ , but at least he won't have to be _angry_.

But this is his life, so of course the simplest of plan falls to pieces in a heartbeat.

"Out for a stroll, li'l snake?"

Mikey goes very still.

Of course. Of _course_ , in a city of eight million people, he'll run smack dab into the one who hates him the most.

He's honestly not sure why he's surprised, really. It stands to reason that Hob would be here, just as it stands to reason that Bishop will probably stumble upon them following an emergency visit to the evil-sunglasses store, and a meteor will come crashing down squarely on Mikey's head.

Fucking turtle luck.

He turns to find Hob propped up against the wall, his lame trench coat streaked with mud and his eyepatch slightly askew. He's holding a dark glass bottle loosely in one hand, and even Mikey's nostrils twitch as the bitter scent of whiskey. Hob's not coping well, either, and for a second Mikey almost feels sorry him.

For a second. And then Hob staggers forward and slurs, "I asked ya a question, l'il snake. Are ya out for a stroll? Cruising the city, looking for new lives t' fuck up like the l'il slut you are?"

 _Slut_.

It hits him in a way that "freak" or "dummy," painful as they are, never have. It's a far more intimate insult, especially since he's had dreams of being called that name by someone bigger, far more well-meaning than himself or Hob (another part of his personality that his brothers will never see).

Hob doesn't mean it playfully or lovingly. He says the word like it's a good excuse for him to rip Mikey limb from limb.

"What did you just call me?" Mikey asks, quietly astonished at how calm and precise his words are.

"Slut." Hobs slurs, jabbing a finger into Mikey's chest as he sways slightly. "Bitch. Tease. Whore. It's what ya _are_ , aren't ya? You breezed into our lives and fucked Slash's head up, didn't ya? Got him killed."

"Are you jealous?" Mikey hears himself ask from a distance.

Hob laughs harshly. "Jealous? Are ya _serious?_ Love's a fuckin' _disease_. Ya infected Slash, and he damned himself for ya."

"I didn't make Slash do anything," Mikey says flatly. He knows that he's going about this wrong, that he should be using gap-bridging words like "dude," that he should be desperately trying to see things from Hob's point of view and help the alley cat understand how Mikey feels. It's the smart thing to do, the _nice_ thing.

Right now, Mikey is so very very tired of being nice.

"Oh, really?" Hob sets the bottle down with exaggerated care and starts counting off on his fingers. "Let's see...he risked his fuckin' life shootin' himself up wid' serum so he could be smart f'you, to _impress_ you. He stood up to me and went off on his own 'cause he wanted to show you he was a big tough independ'nt manly man."

Mikey opens his mouth, but nothing his chest. Slash didn't do those things because of him, it's ridiculous, Slash never thought of him as someone to _impress_ like that...did he? It's ridiculous.

As ridiculous as Mikey falling in love with him in the first place.

"And if that wern't _enough_ ," Hob hisses, blowing spit and harsh alcohol breath into Mikey's face, "You fuckin' seduced him into tha' sunshine-n-flowers talk ya an' your shithead brothers won't shut up 'bout. Do no harm, take no life, what a bunch of _bullshit_. If he hadn't practically _castrated_ 'imself to follow your stupid philosphy, he might have been able to fight off those EPF _cunts."_

He leans close enough for them to kiss, but instead Hob digs his claws painfully into Mikey's carapace and hisses "Bishop may have stuck that stupid bomb n'im, but Slash is _dead_ 'cause of _you_. And he knows that. He told me, before you died, that he saw your _bullshit_ for what it was."

"Take that back," Mikey whispers. He's a little impressed at himself for being able to string a sentence together, what with his soul cracking into pieces and the alley going white at the edges and all.

Hob throws back his head and laughs even harder. "Or what, l'il faggot? You're too much of a pussy to do shit, and we both know it. You're just a whiny bitch, like all your nutcase bro--"

The first blow from the nunchaku cracks across Hob's right knee; the second knocked the wind out of him before he could even whole. He throws an awkward punch, gasping, and Mikey danced out of the way to land two more blows on each of Hob's arms, sending them hanging limp and dead at his sides. Hob growls, attempting a kick, but all he does is knock over the bottle and send booze slugging across the pavement.

Mikey knows that this is the proper moment to end the fight and walk away. He _knows_ that. So why, exactly, does he drive his knee between Hob's legs? Why does he follow up with a string of brutal taps on Hob's face, torso, limbs? Why is he using his nunchaku to send Hob spinning through the alley like a top?

It dawns on him that he should maybe stop hitting Hob. So he does, putting one of his chucks back into his belt. Then, in a move he's never attempted, never even _imagined_ , he wraps the other chuck around Hob's neck, crossing the chains over his throat. He pulls and Hob collapses to his knees, gasping for breath.

Mikey follows, and for a moment they simple huddle there panting, staying at each other. Then Mikey speaks, and his voice comes out as sharp and cold as one of Leo's swords.

"Fuck. You."

Hob coughs, a string of bloody spittle lapping at Mikey's face. He doesn't flinch.

"You think my brothers and I are the way we are because we're _weak?"_ He rattles the chain at the last word, watching Hob's face contort in pain. "We don't kill because three hundred years ago we got _our fucking heads chopped off_."

Hob's face widens in surprise and confusion at that, but Mikey plows on. "You know what being killed is like? It fucking _sucks._ We don't like doing that to people, because we like to fucking _try_ to be human.

"Killing people doesn't mean you're tough or smart or strong, it means you're afraid, so afraid of someone that you have to literally wipe them from the _earth_. And the more people you kill, the more people want to kill _you_ , and the more people you have to be afraid of. Slash understood that, because he's not a fucking overgrown _child_ with a gun." He pulls a little harder.

"Maybe Slash did what he did because of me, maybe he didn't. But he also did it 'cause he didn't want to be _afraid_. He took that serum because he wanted to _understand_ the world, not just smash it up 'til the end of time. He left you and your gung-ho _Die Hard_ bullshit because he didn't want to be afraid of the world, to feel like he always needed to have a _gun_ on most of the human race."

The words are spilling out of Mikey like lava, scorching and purifying. He's never said any of this to anyone before, not even himself.

His voice shakes a little when he says. "When Slash...did what he did, he did it because he didn't want to let his fear of death control him. When he sacrificed him to save--not to mention _two civilizations_ \--he didn't do it to _impress_ me or any of that bullshit. He did it because he was brave, braver than any of us."

Hob's glaring up at him, still disbelieving, still defiant. And Mikey feels a dark, ugly little voice crawl up his throat and out of his mouth, saying "But maybe...maybe you're right. Maybe there are some things we should be afraid of. 'Cause I'm afraid of _you_ , Hob."

The wood of his chuck handles are digging into his hands. He feels himself moving his arms a little farther apart, sees the steel circle around Hob's throat grow a little smaller. All of this looks very distant and he can't figure out how it's connected.

"I'm afraid of you," says the dark voice, "because however much I've fucked up, you've been so much worse. You're a poser--a stupid little Magneto wannabe who doesn't give a shit who gets killed for his stupid cause. And maybe, if I let you live, someone'll get killed. _Again._ "

Hob is making strange, guttural sounds, but they're drowned out by the faint buzzing in Mikey's head and that dark voice.

"Maybe I should get rid of _you._ A pre-emptive attack, right? Is that what you'd call it? Hob?"

The smell of urine mixes with the booze.

"Hob?"

He looks into Hob's eye, and it's bulging in his head. But more than that, he looks _scared_ , scared the way Mikey's only ever seen once, in his father's eyes all those centuries ago, and back then the sight had rocked his world...

He pulls the chuck away and scrambles backward. Hob collapse on his side, gasping and thrashing like a man just rescued from drowning.

Mikey barely manages to stow the chuck in his belt before he's spewing vomit across the pavement. He lurches to his feet, mouth acrid and burning, the buzzing in his head turned up to a scream.

WHAT DID I JUST--

He shoots a look at Hob, just in time to see the alley cat's eye roll up in his head before he passes out with a groan. Unconscious, but alive. _Alive_ , thank the ancestors. Because Mikey was so, so so very _close..._

_Oh._

_Oh, God._

The rage has burned out of him, leaving only a pit of horror and fear. Sadness and shame, too, because what would his brothers think if they saw him? And Slash, what would he say....

 _Maybe he'd be proud of you. Maybe he'd think it was hot_ , whispers the dark voice, and Mikey shoves it away.

There's no time to get lost in thought, not now. He has to start making up for what he did, however he can. Mikey slings Hob's arm over his shoulder and staggers off into the night, arms shaking from the strain and nose wrinkling from the smell.

He deserves it, though. He deserves so much worse, but if he confesses to his brothers and requests punishment, all he'll do is send shockwaves through their already-fragile dynamic. They have so much on their shoulders already; they _need_ him to be the sweet little baby of the family, the one with simple problems and undemanding appetites. If they find out what he's capable of...he won't put them through that.

Mikey hauls him off to the Mutanimals' latest hideout and Sally Pride opens the door, blinking blearily at him. The sight of Hob doesn't seem to bother her. "Jumped you, didn't he?"

"Yeah," Mikey mutters, shuffling his feet. She misinterprets his signals and smiles reassuringly at him as they haul Hob to a couch. "Knew he was gonna fuck up like this eventually, the poor asshole. You okay?"

"I'm good," Mikey says. He's physically intact, and she can't possibly expect him to be in a decent mental state right now, so it's not a lie. Not really.

She nods, looking relieved. "Good. I'll ice him up and he'll wake up in a few hours with a massive hangover and no clue what happened. Punishment enough, probably. I'll tell him he fell down the stairs or some such bullshit. That good with you?"

Mikey shrugs. "Yeah, that's fine."

"You're a good kid, Mike." says Sally. "Lucky it wasn't Raph he met up with, that's all I have to say." She's getting ice out of the fridge, so if there's anything on his face to reveal how those words make him scream inside she doesn't notice.

Mikey mutters a goodbye and starts to head out the door, but stops with his head on the knob. "Hey, um...I think we're gonna trying to put together a memorial for Slash in a few days, I think. You guys wanna help with that? We could do something in the church."

She gives him another warm smile. "That's sweet of you, Mikey. I think we'd all like that."

Mikey lets himself cry silently on the way back home, tears trickling down his face and flowing down his neck as he runs. He wonders if this is what's it like for Slash or Raph or Leo, if this is how it feels to be terrified of yourself and know that things will never be the same again.

And yet...a part of him also feels quietly gratified to know that he can do these things. The ninja in Mikey recognizes that everything can be a weapon, even a dark voice.

He won't be afraid, or seek the death of himself or others. He'll honor Slash's legacy.

But he'll also do whatever it takes to keep his loved ones safe.


End file.
